focus on “a hypothesis’ ability to predict” is, to my mind unfortunately, too often prioritized over “a hypothesis’ explanatory power” – this especially in philosophy. — javra

True, or even in regular life. It's extremely common to confuse correlation with causation, with the result that predictions may be 100% correct but have no explanatory power whatsoever.

to my best understanding it remains the case that the eliminativist will not be able to explain most anything as regards awareness per se. And without awareness, there cannot be any form of empiricism. — javra

The only eliminativist I've really spent much time on is Daniel Dennett, because he's extremely good at discussing science and can almost always put the eliminativist case with vigor and humor. He would, of course, disagree with you. I believe he would say that consciousness and awareness are user illusions -- as is, indeed, the user him/herself! When your materialism goes that deep, it's hard to know what to say in reply. Dennett is able to provide very plausible stories about how these illusions work. I even find his evolutionary explanations for the illusion of consciousness to be logical enough. But his assumptions are such that we can't ask him, "But why does it have to be an illusion in the first place?" Or rather, we can, but I think would say, "Because the material world is the only thing that exists."

The only eliminativist I've really spent much time on is Daniel Dennett, [...] I believe he would say that consciousness and awareness are user illusions -- as is, indeed, the user him/herself! — J

Though I'm familiar with the argument, I haven't read Dennett's works first hand myself, so I'm not sure how he would argue this illusion might work when replied to thusly:

"Consciousness" is (I think we'd all agree) a very concept-laden term - such that what some might interpret by the term might in fact not be. I grant this. But there can be no notion of consciousness devoid of all awareness.

And, as to "awareness being an illusion", an illusion relative to what if not to awareness itself?

"Illusion" - if its to be at all cogent as term - can only mean "misapprehension, i.e. a mistaken understanding (else: a mistaken seeming)". So, I'd take it that for wrong-apprehension to occur there must then by entailment yet be an ontically occurring apprehension, an understanding, by ...

And here again I ask by what else if not by an ontically actual and hence real awareness (or, as @Count Timothy von Icarus might say, "by the intellect", which is awareness-endowed by the very fact of being that which understands).

Illusion devoid of an ontically real awareness to which the illusion applies is, I argue, at best nonsensical (and at worst, possibly willfully dishonest).

I don't think so. I deliberately said that we know "just about nothing, scientifically, concerning the phenomenon of consciousness" because a) I believe it's true, and b) there's no reason we can't meet the eliminativist somewhat on their own ground.

I see. I guess the difference is that I wouldn't grant them the "scientific." On their account, the vast bulk of the social sciences might be seen as falling outside the purview of "science." Or, on your more radically empiricist accounts, the vast bulk of books published in the sciences also fail to be "scientific," on the grounds that they are "metaphysical speculation," or "naively realist."

What is this faculty, and how does it do what it does? Just giving it a name doesn't help.

I don't get this critique, because existing work goes way beyond giving it a name. The original criticism of the via antiqua was that it was too technical, too detailed, and too complex. It's a broad area, but just consider the role of signs in the communication of form (doctrina signorum). I think we might criticize C.S. Peirce or John Deely on several grounds, lack of organization, etc., but "lack of detail and explanation" hardly seems like it should be one of them. It just isn't an explanation in terms of prediction and mechanism.

And so too for explanations of form, perception, abstraction, etc. There are indeed works that try to avoid committing too much to extremely detailed expositions, and I think this is sometimes actually to their credit. Not all topics admit of the same degree of specificity. Robert Sokolowski's The Phenomenology of the Human Person is a great example. That's an expansion on Aquinas, Aristotle, Husserl, and modern cognitive science. It goes far beyond naming, it's just that it also makes no attempt to remain committed to the empiricist presuppositions of what explanation must look like. The D.C. Schindler book I referenced, while high level and focused more on the practical role of beauty, is also not short on explanation.

Moreover, we can't just say, "Well, you're asking for a scientific explanation and that's not appropriate."

I don't see why not. This would depend entirely on how "scientific explanation" is defined. If attempts to provide a metaphysics of knowledge are shot down on the grounds that "a good explanation is scientific" and that "scientific explanations" avoid metaphysics (which normally amounts to just assuming certain metaphysical stances), this seems like it could equally be deemed question begging.

And let's be clear, the emotivist is also offering an explanation. They don't deny the experience of goodness, beauty, and truth tout court. Rather, they positively claim that these specifically involve irrational processes within the human person, and do not directly involve the things judged to be beautiful, etc.

Yet if they say: "A rainbow cannot be beautiful per se, because it's just water droplets, light, and refraction," we might very well ask "how does the body, which is also mostly water, and is supposedly also nothing but chemicals and energy accomplish the feat of producing beauty, which the rainbow is incapable of in virtue of its being composed of chemicals and energy?" Or: "Why is it implausible that a human body could be beautiful, but plausible that it produces all beauty?" "Why are 'ensembles of particles' incapable of possessing beauty, but fully capable of experiencing it?" The emotivist claim is no less extraordinary from the perspective of the reductive paradigm. In some ways, it is more extraordinary, because now beauty cannot be some sort of emergent property of things' roles in their context, or some non-mathematical property of being that has been missed by our methods, but must instead be a sui generis product produced wholly within the skulls of individual men.



:up: I largely agree, although I do think it is sometimes the case that techne can involve phenomena that are not well-understood (e.g. early heat engines and heat, early radios and EM fields, etc.). Techne is in some sense the proof of episteme, and what "objectifies" it in the world (in the same way that Hegel says that institutions serve to objectify morality).

You could probably draw an analogy to the ethical and aesthetic life in terms of praxis and theoria.

Techne is in some sense the proof of episteme, and what "objectifies" it in the world (in the same way that Hegel says that institutions serve to objectify morality). — Count Timothy von Icarus

While still upholding the primacy of episteme over techne in their importance, I do agree with this. :up:

And in keeping with this, I often enough think that Francis Bacon would have been better off stating "understanding is power" - this rather than "knowledge is power". But then it gets to be contingent on how one understands and translates the term "scientia".

The human good is not reducible to health, but it involves health. There certainly seem to be facts about what is good for organisms in virtue of their nature. It is not good for some fish to be placed in saltwater, just as it is not good for man to be placed in a container with inadequate oxygen levels. These statements might be taken ceteris paribus, since well-being is most properly predicated of beings, i.e., organisms, and "good" is only said secondarily of external things or the environment.

An appropriate amount of oxygen is said to be both "good" and "healthy," in virtue of how it promotes man's well-being and health respectively, for instance. If being crammed into some space with low oxygen allows a man to reach some greater goal, like skydiving from the edge of space, perhaps it is choice-worthy. This doesn't obviate the fact that there is an minimal atmospheric oxygen level that one can categorize as good or healthy vis-a-vis man in general. If this were not the case, it would imply that there is no "fact of the matter" as to whether or not oxygen affects the human good, which seems absurd.

If ethics is the study of the human good, human flourishing, or "living a good life," there will be many such facts that are relevant.

I am unsure what, though, and it's certainly not a roadmap by any means. There always remains some X factor of 'wisdom' involved in delivering medicine, and more thoroughly in attempting to live a happy life (as you've used that concept, I'll address it) viz. most often people are happiest not doing what is medically optimal. Or even expressly doing what is not medically optimal.

What's the objection here? A demand for absolute certainty and precision? There is also a sort of practical wisdom that comes into architecture, aircraft design, launching satellites, raising sheep, etc. But that doesn't mean there are facts relevant to how to do these successfully. No measurement reaches absolute precision or certainty. It might not be obvious whether a car needs a new radiator, or just a repair and for the coolant to be bled to let out air, but there is a fact of the matter. Bleeding the coolant will work to stop the coolant warning from tripping or it won't. It will also be a fact that very many things, e.g. shooting the head gasket with a rifle, won't fix the car, and can be ruled out.

Would it be non-ethical to serve alcohol? Some say so, but thats an extreme position that I think misunderstands ethics. I'm sure you'd agree, that such extreme principle is probably not teh best way to go - bu it would be a fairly logical resutl of understanding medical facts as ethical. They can be informative, and they can bear weight, I should think, on ethical reasoning but I can't see how they could arbitrate much of anything. If someone wants their leg broke, they want it broke.

I'd just repeat that well-being isn't reducible to health, but neither are they unrelated. "Good" or "healthy" is primarily said of men, and then said of things like alcohol insomuch as they promote, are signs of, symptoms of, etc. health or well-being in men. All men are different, and so we shouldn't expect to be able to formulate universal maxims, except in extreme cases. There are clearly levels of alcohol consumption that are going to virtually always be "too much," unless we think up extremely bizarre scenarios (e.g. "aliens will blow up the planet unless you can finish 15 liters of whiskey in the next hour!"). But neither is the relationship between alcohol and well-being amongst men random and unknowable. It is regular and knowable.

That "alcoholism" is not good for well-being is something that can at least be established ceteris paribus, and you might be able to go further when you consider our capacity for freedom and self-determination and how chemical dependency and addiction undermines this capacity.

I'm also reminded of an Orthodox catechumenal lecture I attended. It put the Eastern grievance with Western theology like this:

Picture God as a sort of luminous orb. Western scholasticism became an attempt to write down everything it could say about the orb, starting from "natural theology" and revelation (primarily Holy Scripture), and then deducing all the facts one could syllogize from this. This produced a lot of facts and statements.

But along comes Luther, and he says: "No, no, no, you're all wrong. You're looking at it from the wrong angle. Come stand over here. I stand here, and I've written down everything I can see, and this is the correct way to put it."

But along comes Calvin. And he says "no, you're both wrong, come stand here!" And then Zwingli shows up, and he says... etc.

The Orthodox say: "Don't even try to write anything down. Pursue the ascetical life and the sacraments, engage in praktikos, that you might go inside/become the orb, and then you shall understand."

And so it is for beauty too. This is implicit in the three stages of knowing in the Desert Fathers, which still dominates Orthodox philosophy. First there is ascetical discipline, the sacraments, and the development of virtue. Then there is knowledge of the divine through finite things, as signs and exemplars. This is different from the instrumental knowledge of finite things that Bacon prioritizes. It is not knowledge of their practical uses, but primarily knowledge of their beauty and their role in the whole. And last comes theology/theoria, theosis/deification.

There are some similarities here with non-Christian Eastern philosophy as well obviously (e.g. the Zen quote I shared earlier).

(Actually, this theme is still very strong in the West through the High Middle Ages, with St. Bonaventure, Meister Eckhart, and even St. Thomas. "Knowing by becoming" was a key idea of Boethius as well. But the Orthodox tend to see this period as the "setting the stage" for later divergence. Personally, I think they set the divergence too early and are overly critical of early scholasticism, primarily because this is when the political schism between East and West becomes more acute, and they are still angry over the Sack of Constantinople (1204).)

Moreover, we can't just say, "Well, you're asking for a scientific explanation and that's not appropriate."

This would depend entirely on how "scientific explanation" is defined. If attempts to provide a metaphysics of knowledge are shot down on the grounds that "a good explanation is scientific" and that "scientific explanations" avoid metaphysics (which normally amounts to just assuming certain metaphysical stances), this seems like it could equally be deemed question begging. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes. What I meant was, if we object on the grounds that what's being asked for is a scientific explanation, and that's not appropriate, our interlocutor can reply, "Fine, give me any kind of explanation." And in way, the burden is then on us to explain why what we offer counts as explanatory.

This ties in to your other point, about how to bring in "intellect" as explanatory. You're right that there's a lot more than mere naming going on, and I was too dismissive about that. But I worry about explanations that aren't lawlike (aka objective), to a degree. This is where, for me, hermeneutics comes in. You mentioned the human sciences, which I think are indeed scientific but often by way of hermeneutical understanding. Same, perhaps, with the study of value -- we need a way to legitimate an interpretation as explanatory. Well, a huge topic, so I'll stop.

The human good is not reducible to health, but it involves health. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Certainly can, but there's no reason to suppose someone who doesn't think so is wrong. This is my entire point (and I think most of the discussion is happening, inadvertently, on a level above this). What objectivity is there to the claim that health is constitutive (even partly) of "the good for man"? It may well be that elimination is the best thing for man (at an extreme). There's no arguments which could counter this, to my knowledge, so I think there's a lot of presupposition going on. But in general, I would agree, that and did say as much. It will bear a lot of weigh in ethical reasoning, but not ethical concepts I don't think.

It is not good for some fish to be placed in saltwater — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is incorrect, as I see. It is bad for the body of a fish to be placed in saltwater (salmon notwithstanding). This is does not carry an ethical claim and so the bare assertion actually requires some prior justification (this, perhaps, being hte level issue noted above). It may be that fish don't experience in the sense required for ethical consideration. I'm not aware one way or the other, but certainly its a reasonable assumption (even on a 50/50 basis) of a lower fish like a guppy or plecostomus.

An appropriate amount of oxygen is said to be both "good" and "healthy," in virtue of how it promotes man's well-being and health respectively, for instance. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That something is said, doesn't make it so. It is good for a man to continue breathing oxygen (and in turn, continue living). This still doesn't become an ethical claim. It is merely medical fact, aimed at a chosen goal. I can't see that this is an ethical claim. It's 'good' in terms of a specific goal. Maybe you're not stating that you see ethics as tied to specific goals. Though, if that's the case, everything is up for grabs.

What's the objection here? — Count Timothy von Icarus

If my response were agreed with (not that it should,just illustrating) then your claim is clearly not an ethical one. The objection is that you're calling a mere fact an ethical statement. Its an is, not an ought.

But that doesn't mean there are facts relevant to how to do these successfully. — Count Timothy von Icarus

There clearly are. Maybe you've misspoken here? But again, they aren't ethical facts. So, I'm unsure how your initial question (in this quote) could be answered. The objection hasn't even been addressed.

But neither is the relationship between alcohol and well-being amongst men random and unknowable. It is regular and knowable. — Count Timothy von Icarus

And non-ethical (as yet, on your account).

That "alcoholism" is not good for well-being is something that can at least be established — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yep. Still failing to see how this is an ethical statement (i've cut the quote because I don't think your point requires that justification. The above stands to reason).

And, as to "awareness being an illusion", an illusion relative to what if not to awareness itself? — javra

I think this is the hardest question for someone like Dennett to answer. At best, he can say that awareness is not at all like what we think it's like, or doesn't have the moving parts we think it has, or doesn't lead to the conclusions about reality that we think it does . . . and on and on. But to call the experience itself an illusion does seem to require a viewpoint for which it is illusory. And that viewpoint, in turn, is either non-illusory, or an illusory product itself, in which case we move to Level 3, ad infinitum.

Which is pretty much your criticism too, and I think it's valid.

That said, with someone as smart and philosophically experienced as Dennett, I find it helpful to at least try to see it their way. I believe it comes down, once again, to an unshakable faith in physicalism. What Dennett means by "illusion" is "something that looks like it's non-physical."

I believe it comes down, once again, to an unshakable faith in physicalism. — J

By my counts, quite validly expressed!

And, in keeping with this thread's theme: yes, there is a distinct difference between "faith" at large and that particular type of faith which is "unshakable" - this irrespective of the rational or, in this case, experiential evidence to the contrary.

What Dennett means by "illusion" is "something that looks like it's non-physical." — J

Within this context which you mention, the notion of "illusion" almost begins to make sense. (Save for the "looks like" part :razz: , which, again, would logically entail an awareness which so sees.) In earnest, however, I admire your willingness to see things from others' perspectives.

Since I take it you've read Dennett first-hand, did Dennett ever get around to defining what "the physical" actually is in his philosophical writings? This so as to validly distinguish it from that which would then be "the illusion of non-physicality".

The issue brings to mind Thomas Huxley - with the nickname of "Darwin's bulldog", who first coined the term "agnostic", and who was a worthwhile philosopher in his own right - whose works I have read. A quote from him, here with emphasis on the subject of physicalism / materialism:

My fundamental axiom of speculative philosophy is that materialism and spiritualism are opposite poles of the same absurdity - the absurdity of imagining that we know anything about either spirit or matter.

Since I take it you've read Dennett first-hand, did Dennett ever get around to defining what "the physical" actually is in his philosophical writings? This so as to validly distinguish it from that which would then be "the illusion of non-physicality". — javra

In the introduction to Brainstorms, an early work, Dennett says this:

Complete success in [my] project would vindicate physicalism of a very modest and undoctrinaire sort: all mental events are in the end just physical events, and commonalities between mental events (or between people sharing a mentalistic attribute) are explicated via a description and predication system which is neutral with regard to physicalism, but just for that reason entirely compatible with physicalism. . . . Every mental event is some functional, physical event or other . . . — Brainstorms, pp xviii-xix

This doesn't quite answer your question, but it was the first passage I came across. I'll try to find some others. It doesn't give us a definition of "the physical," but the context would indicate that so-called mental events are correctly described as brain events, without remainder. To think otherwise would mean postulating something that can have no physical reality, and ergo is illusory.

Notice that this is supposed to be "very modest and undoctrinaire"! In some of his later books Dennett was less modest about the implications of his project, and I think probably changed his mind about whether "descriptions and predications" concerning so-called mental events could remain neutral about physicalism. But even at this early stage of his writing, we can see how the reduction of the mental to the physical is perceived very innocently -- nothing doctrinaire about it, just common sense for us scientists, folks!

Yep. Still failing to see how this is an ethical statement (i've cut the quote because I don't think your point requires that justification. The above stands to reason).

I don't know what to tell you. The idea that ethics is primarily the study of human well-being and flourishing, and human excellence, is not my invention, it goes back to Plato and Aristotle, but is also mirrored in Confucius and Indian thinkers. It's the core assumption of a text you can unconfusedly refer to as the Ethics in the field to this day. If "alcoholism is bad for man's well-being" it's a fact of ethical import under such a subject.

How would you define the field of ethics?



I've only read Consciousness Explained cover to cover, and in that he seemed actually somewhat circumspect, even though he does start by putting rather extreme limits on what could count as evidence in a theory of consciousness. However, I do recall that his response to Nagel re "the experience of being a bat," was something to the effect that nothing in the difference between "what it is like to be a bat versus a man" could be "theoretically interesting," which to me just suggest an impoverished notion of theory and knowledge. He was less circumspect in later talks and seemed to be pushing a notion that could possibly run afoul of Hemple's Dilemma (i.e. if something is real, it is, by definition, included in what is physical).

The difficulty is that "physical," like the "methodological naturalism" mentioned earlier in this thread, is that they can be pushed very far in different directions. Some forms of physicalism with "strong emergence" of a discrete "mental realm" can start to look like dualism (which always involved interaction, it just never explained it well). Aristotelian form (and potency) can easily be conceived of as "physical," but form is also fundamentally Intellect in many receptions of Aristotle. Things like economic recessions don't seem like they should be "non-physical" but they certainly do seem like they are incorporeal (without body), which causes problems for some forms of physicalism but not others.

Open questions like: "Is information physical?" and "if so is it "basic" on par with matter and energy, or even more basic?" also show the possibility for divergence. A physicalism where matter and energy emerge from information is very different from one where information is illusory.

How would you define the field of ethics? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Fair enough, on your explication here, as to how we could be at an impasse. That said, I think I did point this out (perhaps implicitly) earlier in the exchange:
Ethics are to do with how we act, specifically, as regards other people (or organisms, I guess). Ethics aren't about human flourishing any more than the rules of football are about scoring touchdowns/goals (depending on your hemisphere). Even expanded concepts of ethics are about how to deal with A.I, aliens, non-existent people, people who can't feel etc.. etc. There are no ethical theories on how best to do any thing. The fact that the above gives us literally no basis to assert anything as 'true' is exactly why being an ethical objectivist is ridiculous, in my view. You have to do something else to get anything like objectivism.

"descriptions and predications" — J

Yes, it doesn't address what physicality per se is. But this theme brings to mind how water can be described via, and predicated on, the structure of two elements. It also brings to mind the fact that such description and predication neither changes a) the reality that water can be wet (a liquid) at room temperature whereas the two gases cannot nor b) the reality that there is no known explanation for why H2O ceases to be strictly gaseous at room temperature, this unlike compounds such as CO2 (predictable thought it is, this quality of H2O, and of other compounds in general, nevertheless being blatant hocus-pocus events that are often overlooked as so being, as though they’ve been in some way explained).

And this, to me, in some ways parallels to the mind-brain dichotomy. There still remains a difference between mind and brain (e.g., the second can be touched, smelled, seen, even tasted; the first can’t - to skip on a long list of maybe more pertinent examples), and there is still no viable explanation of how or why the two correlate. Save that, unlike chemical compounds, the mind holds properties that are commonly understood to be immaterial.

He was less circumspect in later talks and seemed to be pushing a notion that could possibly run afoul of Hemple's Dilemma (i.e. if something is real, it is, by definition, included in what is physical).

The difficulty is that "physical," like the "methodological naturalism" mentioned earlier in this thread, is that they can be pushed very far in different directions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, exactly so. Hence, were something like “the One” to in fact be real, it would then need to be deemed physical due to the necessity of anything real being strictly physical. And what an odd form of physicalism that would be.

Ethics are to do with how we act, specifically, as regards other people (or organisms, I guess). — AmadeusD

I would want to amend this and say that ethics has to do with how we should act.

1. Ethics are to do with how we act
2. Ethics has to do with how we should act

So consider the descriptive claim, "He carried out X act." All such claims are ethical claims on (1) but not on (2), and because not every such claim is an ethical claim, therefore (1) must be false. Would you agree with that? That ethics has a normative quality?

(Of course you might respond by saying that (1) describes but does not define ethics. Still, I would say that (2) gives us a better description and certainly a better definition.)

Further, if someone (such as yourself) thinks that there are no true or false claims about how we should act, then they would say that the "ethics" represented by (2) is a pseudoscience. Maybe you would say that.

What seems to happen in these discussions is that Hume or @AmadeusD or @J makes a claim based on an implicit epistemology, namely the claim that (normative) ethics is unjustifiable. A simplification of the implicit epistemology could be illustrated with Hume's is-ought separation, but the more robust claim is that, "Given my own uncontroversial epistemology, knowledge of ethics is impossible."

One might directly attack the implicit epistemology and try to get them to defend it, but another approach is to simply point out facts such as the following:

If you place food in front of a poor starving person, they will eat it. If you try to argue that 'is' does not imply 'ought' before allowing them to eat it, they will still eat it, but will also think you are crazy. :smile: — Leontiskos

But ask most people "why is it bad for you if I burn out your eyes, or if I burn out your sons eyes," and the responses will be something like:

"If you burn out my eyes it would be incredibly painful and then I would be blind, so of course it wouldn't be good." — Count Timothy von Icarus

...and this is the approach I described <here>. So for example, if "burning out one's eyes" is bad, and everyone knows it is bad, then any epistemology worth its salt must account for this fact. It is no good to engage in the dubious practice of trying to bootstrap an independent epistemology from the ground up and then claim that this homemade epistemology is so well built that anything which lies outside of it must fail the test of knowledge. Or in other words, we are left with the question, "Is Hume's novel epistemology more secure, or is the universal attestation that burning out one's eyes is bad more secure?" It seems clear that the latter is more secure, and that Hume et al. have the burden of proof in showing that we would be more rational to accept their idiosyncratic epistemology rather than accept the claim that burning out one's eyes is bad.

(The underlying claims here are things like <it is good to exist (ceteris paribus)> or <it is good to not be in pain (ceteris paribus)> or <it is good to possess sight (ceteris paribus)>. It's hard to think that one is posing a serious question when they issue the challenge, "But how do you know that it is good to not be in pain?" We can analyze and expose the errors underlying that question and the errors inherent in the implicit epistemology, but the uneducated person who is not capable of exposing those errors is hardly less rationally justified in rejecting the claim that burning out one's eyes is not bad.)

It's not even a pseudo science. It's not at all a science, of any kind. Its whirling and whistling.

Nothing in your second post does anything but elucidate, in apparently sober terms, the emotional valence of ethical considerations.

You've leapfrogged hte entire problem, and gone with accepting "good" and "bad" as they are, where they lie. Not doing ethics, anyway, as whether something is good or bad has nothing to do with whether that should arbitrate our actions.

It's hard to think that one is posing a serious question when they issue the challenge, "But how do you know that it is good to not be in pain?" — Leontiskos

It seems clear that the latter is more secure — Leontiskos

Err nope. There's no relationship between the two, but habit. If you want to invoke some kind of causation between an act and ipso facto good and bad (bare, not for some particular goal i.e not having your eyes burned out) then you've got your entire task still in front of you. I'm waiting.

Enjoying red wine isn't an ethical question. This truly strikes me a bizarre objection. — AmadeusD

Perhaps I just wrote it badly. It wasn't intended as an objection, exactly. The question was genuine - how does emotivism distinguish between emotions that are reactions to judgements of taste and emotions that are reactions to judgements of ethical value? It is true, though, that the answer was not obvious to me, and I might have had objections to any answer offered.

The entire point of ethics is that it delineates actions which effect other people from actions which don't, either do much of anyhing, or have any tangible externalities. — AmadeusD

Yes, that's the standard account. There's a lot to it. The trouble is that the border country between actions that affect other people and those that don't is hotly contested.

After writing this post, I found this -

If ethics is the study of the human good, human flourishing, or "living a good life," there will be many such facts that are relevant. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I sense that this is not quite the same question as the question what rules are required for us to live well together. Should I distinguish between ethics and morality? If not, how to these two questions fit together?

Anyhow, I would just ask: are the empiricists' premises inviolable? They certainty aren't justified by empiricism themselves. Second, is the burden of proof shifting fair? — Count Timothy von Icarus

This was most enlightening. But I think you are being a bit demanding when you comlain that empiricists conduct their critique on some other basis that empiricism. What other basis could they have used? On the other hand, you are justified in pointing out the weakness of the traditional empirical doctrines. These seemed to have survived much better than I thought they would twenty years ago.
Burden of proof arguments don't seem to be very productive. Obviously each side prefers the burden of proof to be on the other and there's no judge to make a ruling. It is better to try to work out what the two sides agree on and frame the debate from there.

Yet if beauty, truth, and goodness are "illusory" they certainly aren't illusory in the way a stick appears bent in water, and it seems fair turn around and demand an account of how such an "illusion" occurs. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes. People very often misunderstand what an illusion is, mistaking illusions for hallucinations or dreams.

These are all "empirical reports" in the broadest sense, in that they deal with sensuous experience. And they're clearly relevant to conceptions of beauty and nature. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Quite so. But surely, these days, we are all acutely aware that how we experience things is heavily structured and conditioned by our approach, in the fullest sense. I suggesting that our conceptions of beauty and nature will affect how we experience things as beautiful or not, as our conception of nature affects how we experience that.

Schindler rejects the notion that beauty is just in the eye of the beholder, that is has no connection to objective reality.

I wonder if it is possible that beauty is in the eye (and brain) of the beholder and connected to objective reality?

In response to this, Schindler proposes his creative retrieval of the transcendentals.

.. and this is where I begin to part company with you. What little I understand about the concept of the transcendentals does not enthuse me. I've not yet understood how it helps me to understand Beauty, Goodness and Truth. I have an obstinate conviction that if they exist at all, they exist in the everyday world that I actually live in.

Whereas, as I hope was clear, my question was a genuine one: It's very important that we understand how values like beauty and moral goodness are recognized -- and very difficult to give a good account of this. — J

When you say "are recognized", I conclude that we need to let go of the philosophy for a while and watch what actually goes on, allowing the phenomena, in some sense of the word, to show us how beauty and moral goodness are recognized. (Unless you think that we all already know...) The account (in whatever form seems appropriate) should then follow without too much difficulty.

What is this faculty (sc. the intellect), and how does it do what it does? Just giving it a name doesn't help. — J

Oh, I do agree that slapping a label on the multifarious business of coming to understand these things does not help.

So, going back to your question -

Exactly how does Coleridge know that the waterfall is sublime rather than pretty? — J

Considering specific incidents looks like a much more productive approach than discussing the transcendentals, so this is a good question. I'm sure one could conjure up an answer from what he says elsewhere about why the waterfall is sublime. It would function as an ostenstive definition.

To disagree with "This is pretty" if those words simply described the lady's feelings, would be absurd: if she had said "I feel sick" Coleridge would hardly have replied "No; I feel quite well." — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is a most helpful remark. It shows something of what taking part in the practice/language game requires.

This was most enlightening. But I think you are being a bit demanding when you comlain that empiricists conduct their critique on some other basis that empiricism. What other basis could they have used?

Well, given the history of the movement I referred to, it seems that the movement has terminated in:

A. A denial that we can know much of anything at all (or a radical redefinition of "knowledge" that still admits that "knowledge" as classically conceived is virtually impossible).
B. A denial that empiricism can justify its own methods and assumptions.
C. Logical nihilism and deflationism vis-á-vis truth, and thus the inability to claim that its methods (or emotivism) are "really true" and not just the results of "one game among infinitely many."

To be sure, your standard "classical Victorian scientific realist" doesn't agree with the where the tradition has terminated, but then again these folks (e.g. Sam Harris) often don't tend to be emotivists because of their faith that "goodness" must reduce to some sort of objective scientific phenomena. Even so, we might question them as to how they avoid the later positivist and then post-modern slide away from the possibility of knowledge and the truth of their positions, since these conclusions have been very hard to overcome from within the Anglo-empiricists' own tradition (aside from ignoring them on the grounds that they are absurd, e.g. Harris or Pinkers' approach).

Or to sum up, if someone's epistemic starting point seems both self-refuting and useless, or leads to absurd conclusions like "contradictory propositions are equally 'true' without qualification," I think it is 100% fair to question if these starting points are sacrosanct. Indeed, reaching absurd conclusions should make us question either the argument or the premises. Key arguments were made by very smart people: Hume, Kant, Wittgenstein, the positivists, Quine, etc., and have been gone over with a fine tooth comb, so I would start with the premises, which often haven't been questioned much at all.

Burden of proof arguments don't seem to be very productive. Obviously each side prefers the burden of proof to be on the other and there's no judge to make a ruling. It is better to try to work out what the two sides agree on and frame the debate from there.

In general, I agree, but the denial of value tout court, which amounts to a denial that anything can be said to be truly good or bad for man or individual men, is a particularly implausible claim, somewhat on par with radical skepticism. I think it's fair for us to shift the burden of proof onto the radical skeptic, to ask why they don't drive into oncomming traffic, since nothing can be known about it, or why they drive on the road heading east to New York to get to New York, instead of west, despite their claims that, ultimately, nothing can be known about how to get from one place to another. The radical skeptic doesn't even act like they believe their own thesis.

So too the anti-realist. They don't act as if they have recognized that any notion of what is "good for them" reduces to irrational sentiment. Indeed, in my experience, anti-realists tend to be more politically radical than average and care a great deal about bolstering one irrational sentiment over another.

But beliefs that seem "impossible to truly believe" (i.e. for actions to correspond to stated belief) seem like they should require particular justification.

I wonder if it is possible that beauty is in the eye (and brain) of the beholder and connected to objective reality?

Yes, that would be Schindler's contention. He draws a lot of scholasticism, where the adage was "everything is received in the mode of the receiver."

.. and this is where I begin to part company with you. What little I understand about the concept of the transcendentals does not enthuse me. I've not yet understood how it helps me to understand Beauty, Goodness and Truth. I have an obstinate conviction that if they exist at all, they exist in the everyday world that I actually live in.

Well, this is the difficulty. The Doctrine of Transcendentals is among the most difficult in the classical metaphysical tradition, but also, with the Analogia Entis, its beating heart. Schindler's book is among the more accessible, but it still isn't perfect. The SEP article on it is, unfortunately, IMHO, not very good.

But the bolded is not at variance with the doctrine. What is transcendent is not absent from what it transcends, rather it goes beyond them. And when we talk about transcending, we are mostly talking about transcending the categories (although finite being as well).

I won't head down this path, except to say that I think the easiest path to understanding the Doctrine is to understand why Plato thinks (the pursuit of) the Good is properly what unifies the human being, and then understanding how Aristotle extends this connection between Goodness and unity to help deny why any thing is a thing (a discrete whole, a being) at all, and thus also a "one" a "unity."

Exactly how does Coleridge know that the waterfall is sublime rather than pretty?
— J
Considering specific incidents looks like a much more productive approach than discussing the transcendentals, so this is a good question. I'm sure one could conjure up an answer from what he says elsewhere about why the waterfall is sublime. It would function as an ostensive definition. — Ludwig V

I prefer specific examples too. But let me say two things about this one: First, we might indeed delve into Coleridge's life and world to come up with an answer, but that's not quite what I'm looking for. Perhaps I should have bolded "know". Is Coleridge's opinion a justified true belief? Or some other kind of knowledge? This generalizes to anyone with this opinion, of course, not just Coleridge.

Second, I approach this example with a bias. I strongly suspect that the waterfall really is a sublime sight. (Yes, I've changed the terms slightly so as to allow "sight" a role.) So, far from a debunking question, I'm asking for a theory that can confirm my bias: I want to be on firm ground when I say that the sight of the waterfall is sublime, or that the Beatles wrote great songs, etc. But, as I said above, such a theory is notoriously difficult to construct. That doesn't mean we shouldn't keep working on it, though.

May I make a suggestion? This looks like a classic case of a disagreement about how to use a term, "ethics" in this case. Why don't the two of you agree to retire the terminological dispute, accepting that the term has been used differently in different philosophical cultures, and that both of you can make a decent case for your particular use. Then you can discuss how each of these (Project 1 and Project 2, you could call them) endeavors actually works, and how they might relate to each other. Maybe at some later point, you'll decide to award one of them the prize of being called "ethics" -- or maybe not.

If you don't do this, it seems to me that you will either resume the search for the Great Dictionary that will settle the matter, or keep re-invoking various traditions to support your position. But that's not nearly as interesting as looking at the practices themselves, trying to understand their structure and what they might commit us to.

He was less circumspect in later talks and seemed to be pushing a notion that could possibly run afoul of Hemple's Dilemma (i.e. if something is real, it is, by definition, included in what is physical).

The difficulty is that "physical," like the "methodological naturalism" mentioned earlier in this thread, is that they can be pushed very far in different directions.
— Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, exactly so. — javra

Dennett's particular flavor of physicalism is strongly epistemological. He's not so much trying to say that there are no experiences that correspond to "mental events" or "qualia," but rather that everything we think we know about them is wrong. We keep assuming that our privileged first-person stance gives us insight into another realm that must be non-physical, but since there is no such realm, something else must be going on. The experiences we have must be re-thought as experiences of the physical. And of course Dennett is well aware that phrases like "re-thought" and even "experience" also require non-mentalistic reconstructions.

Almost none of that is true, especially about the first-person stance, IMO, but I want to give Dennett a fair hearing so we can see what a sample version of physicalism is up against.

Dennett's particular flavor of physicalism is strongly epistemological.

[...]

Almost none of that is true, especially about the first-person stance, IMO, but I want to give Dennett a fair hearing so we can see what a sample version of physicalism is up against. — J

I acknowledge this. To me, however, it does raise the question: Can there be anything epistemic without there being something ontic* which the epistemic references?

I so far take philosophical relativism to implicitly, if not also explicitly, make just this claim. A different topic maybe, but I'll argue that upholding an affirmative answer to this question can only result in a logical contradiction: at the same time and in the same respect there both a) is an ontic actuality which the epistemic addresses (namely, the ontic actuality of there in fact not being any ontic actualities - this being a sort of meta-level ontic-actuality) and b) is not any ontic actuality which the epistemic addresses ... This might be better formulated, but the same logical contradictions seems to remain irrespective of adjustments.

The stance of physicalism does seem to presuposes that everything ontically actual, and hence real, is physical. Such that any epistemological account (regarding what is) seems to pivot upon this very bedrock assumption of what the ontic is, even if its kept utterly tacit in the arguments provided.

But on what would the necessary "wrongness of non-physicalism" be grounded? (My own take so far is that physicalism provides a maximal explanatory power to those who are physicalists - and that it's due to this teleological motivation alone (namely, the intent to best understand) that physicalism is so stringently upheld and maintained.)

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* "The ontic" being that which ontology studies (this via any of various epistemologies).

...and this is the approach I described <here>. So for example, if "burning out one's eyes" is bad, and everyone knows it is bad, then any epistemology worth its salt must account for this fact. It is no good to engage in the dubious practice of trying to bootstrap an independent epistemology from the ground up and then claim that this homemade epistemology is so well built that anything which lies outside of it must fail the test of knowledge. Or in other words, we are left with the question, "Is Hume's novel epistemology more secure, or is the universal attestation that burning out one's eyes is bad more secure?" It seems clear that the latter is more secure, and that Hume et al. have the burden of proof in showing that we would be more rational to accept their idiosyncratic epistemology rather than accept the claim that burning out one's eyes is bad

100% agree, but as I tried to point out earlier it's also worth pointing out that the tradition that progresses from Hume seems to largely agree that its own epistemology (and the associated metaphysics it lets in through the back door):

A. Can achieve knowledge of almost nothing (e.g. Hume's Problem of Induction and the very many similar arguments from underdetermination from Wittgenstein, Quine, etc.)

B. That it cannot justify its own premises or know that its epistemology leads to truth (indeed, the tradition largely leans into denying truth as much more than a token after WWII).

C. The tradition also tends towards a sort of logical nihilism, since, leaving no room for intuition/noesis, they are left with an infinite space of possible "games" vis-á-vis logic and mathematics.

D. Because of points A-C, even in its less advanced (we might say not-yet-terminal) phase, the epistemology has become rather obviously self-undermining, and eventually reaches the point of being straightforwardly self-refuting.

The less advanced stages tend to try to counter these problems with an appeal to the successes and authority of "science," but this has myriad problems as well. First, because there is an extremely long gap between the emergence of the "new science" and the technological and economic divergence between the West and other developed states it tries to take credit for. Second, because places where rationalism was dominant kept pace with technological and economic development just as well. Third, because, while there are certainly scientific luminaries who embraced this epistemology, there were also plenty who rejected it, and yet this doesn't seem to have affected their capacity to be major scientific contributors.

Not doing ethics, anyway, as whether something is good or bad has nothing to do with whether that should arbitrate our actions.

If "good" is taken to mean "choice-worthy," as it often is, this seems to be incoherent. "That something is choice-worthy has nothing to do with how we should choose," is like saying "if something is has great heat, it cannot tell us if we should affirm that it is hot."

Aristotle offers up the definition that the good is that towards which all things strive (as their end/goal). I don't know how ethics is even coherent as a subject matter, even to advance anti-realism, if the "good" cannot be related to goals and ends. What would "good" mean then?




I don't think we are actually in much disagreement. I am certainly aware of the tradition that makes ethics the study of a unique "moral good." I even agree with the contention that this makes anti-realism very plausible, or even makes the subject incoherent.

However, seems to be diverging from even the post-Enlightenment tradition that I disagree with given the assertion that "if something is better it tells us nothing about whether or not we should choose it over the worse" or that ethics cannot relate to ends/goals. Maybe he can clarify what he thinks ethics is or under what conditions, if any, it could be coherent.

Maybe he can clarify what he thinks ethics is or under what conditions, if any, it could be coherent. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sure, didn't mean to butt in. Just a suggestion to avoid getting too hung up on a "proper" use of the term.

If "good" is taken to mean "choice-worthy," as it often is . . . — Count Timothy von Icarus

I've never understood this. How is it different from the "dormative power" of a sleeping pill? What makes something worthy of being chosen? Isn't whatever that is -- call it X-- what we should be talking about, rather than the fact that X makes something worthy of being chosen?

If I choose to read an interesting book, that book is, arguably, choice-worthy. But why? I honestly don't see how calling out its choice-worthiness gets us anywhere. You can't mean that being chosen is any sort of moral criterion. So how does "good" get brought in here? What is it about the book that would make my choice a worthy one?

It sounds like Socrates and Euthyphro. Is piety whatever the gods love, or do they love it because it is pious? Is something good because it is choice-worthy, or is it choice-worthy because it is good?

Frustrated with my own inability to grasp this, I searched for "choice-worthy" online and . . . well, is there anyone besides Aristotelians who uses this term? I looked at the Nich. Ethics and I find the assertion that "every choice aims at some good." Really? Surely he doesn't mean "good" in the way we're using it. I choose a sharp knife to better cut someone's throat; a good choice, indeed, but hardly germane. And yes, I see how something could be chosen for its own sake -- a "final end" -- but that still doesn't tell us what makes it worthy.

I dunno . . . I would genuinely be grateful if you could explain this.

If I choose to read an interesting book, that book is, arguably, choice-worthy. But why? I honestly don't see how calling out its choice-worthiness gets us anywhere. You can't mean that being chosen is any sort of moral criterion. So how does "good" get brought in here? What is it about the book that would make my choice a worthy one? — J

While I hope I’m not intruding on the discussion, I thought at least parts of this might be of use to the issue (these being some personal perspectives interjected with what I take to be staple aspects of the philosophy of ethics at large):

A synonym of “good” is “beneficial”. We always select what we select to do deeming it beneficial to us. This is quite arguably a universal to all choices made and all those with an ability to so chose. Going to the dentist because it is beneficial, even if deemed unpleasant. Etc.

Ethics come into play in the context of whether or not that which we deem to be beneficial to us in fact actually is so or not. If it in fact is beneficial, then it is the correct - aka the right - thing to do. If it in fact is not beneficial to us (either in the short or long term when considered in terms of overall outcome), then it is the incorrect - aka the wrong - thing to do.

There’s of course much which could then be considered in this calculus of what is the right vs. the wrong thing to do. Including taking into account other’s actions and reactions to what one does (or does not) do.

This calculus then ultimately ending in the possible metaphysical notion of there being an ontically real but yet to be actualized, ultimate beneficiality to aim toward – one that is of itself validly obtainable in principle (this, again, at some future time rather than in the here and now), hence being correct or true, hence being right – and this irrespective of people’s perspectives pro or contra – which could be worded as “a complete and perfect eudemonia or else wellbeing”.

This, whatever it might be in its details, then being what would be termed “the (objective) Good” – which would then hold ontic presence, hence be real, as a telos (teloi, final causes, always being givens that await to be actualized in the future that, at such, are likewise always concurrent with that which they teleologically effect - in this case the very sentience which innately seeks optimal wellbeing).

As to why the Good is not yet actualized, simplistically, this can be explained via our ignorance and our capacity to choose wrongs (in the erroneous belief that they are beneficial when, in fact, they are not).

I hope I’m not intruding on the discussion, — javra

Not at all, as far as I'm concerned. It's the agora!

Ethics come into play in the context of whether or not that which we deem to be beneficial to us in fact actually is so or not. — javra

This seems like a good window onto virtue ethics, and the way you go on to elaborate it also makes sense. So could we say that something is "choice-worthy" if it's in fact beneficial to us? I'd be happy with that but, problem is, we've only deferred the question of what is in fact beneficial to us. That's why I'm questioning whether -- or admitting my ignorance about -- how bringing in choice-worthiness helps matters. Why not leave it out entirely and just say what you said, above?

That's why I'm questioning whether -- or admitting my ignorance about -- how bringing in choice-worthiness helps matters. — J

In truth, I'm not intimately familiar with the philosophical use of "choice-worthiness" ... but I take it to specify that which makes one alternative among the two or more we're faced with worthy of being chosen.

So understood, choice-worthiness would then be an intrinsic aspect of ethics - for it is that which we presume to make a given alternative worthy of being chosen which determines our ethical standing in so choosing. Hence, we always chose what we assume to be beneficial/good to us. But only if our reasons for the choice made (to include teleological reasons) are correct, hence right, will our choice then be ethical.

For instance, the murderer chooses to murder in the pursuit of that happiness which accompanies so successfully murdering. Here, to successfully murder will be good relative to the murderer's character due to the murderer deeming this beneficial to him/herself (maybe on account of the euphoric thrill thereby obtained in so doing and getting away with it). But we sane people deem this to be an unethical choice due to knowing full well that it leads, sooner or later, to everyone's reduced eudemonia/wellbeing (including the murderer's). We sane people thereby know this choice to murder to be a blatant wrong - rather than being a right / correct choice to make - and this in almost all conceivable scenarios imaginable we might care to hypothesize. To this extent making murder objectively wrong (although I could play devils advocate to this and provide examples where murder might be the lesser of the available wrongs and, in this manner, not be the unethical choice to make).

This then can be contrasted to choosing chocolate vs. vanilla ice-cream. Unless there's allergies or other outstanding factors involved, choosing one one or another will make virtually no difference whatsoever to the telos of optimal eudemonia. Here, though we yet choose based on what we deem to be most beneficial for us, our choice will not readily fall into the category of "ethics".

All the same, devoid of the criteria of choice-worthiness (as previously defined), I don't yet understand how any comportment or deed can be appraised as being either ethical/virtuous or not. Conversely, the activity of entities we deem devoid of any ability to choose - rocks as one clear example, such as when they result in an avalanche - we neither appraise as ethical or unethical. Such that it (at least so seems to me) is only via what we deem "worthy of being chosen" that any determination can be made as to the ethics concerned or the ethos we adopt.

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This seems like a good window onto virtue ethics, and the way you go on to elaborate it also makes sense. — J

BTW, I neglected to say this initially, but thanks for these comments. They’re appreciated!

- Yep, good points. I definitely agree with all of that. I was just trying to keep it simple.